chuckles1066
Member
- Joined
- 24 Nov 2010
- Messages
- 361
Well well, who'd have thunk it, me back on the railways.
Er, not as a commuter on this occasion, thankfully, just on a day freebie with the wife (aka the credit card custodian) courtesy of my employer to Cardiff.
A few hours retail therapy for her and the journey from Filton went without hitch, all good so far.
The fun began at Cardiff.
The 14:31 service to Portsmouth was cancelled but FGW were sorry for any inconvenienced caused.....or that was what the announcement said so that's alright then.
The 14:48 to Swansea was also cancelled but FGW were sorry about that as well even if the apology appeared to be a well-used recording.
Our train, the 15:00 to Taunton (from platform 1), rolled up on platform 2 with no announcement that there'd been a platform change.....luckily, knowing FGW's track record, I had an eye on the yellow led board thing and spotted the crafty switch.
However, I truly did feel sorry for the harrassed guard who had to explain to a large number of aggressive Northerners on platform 2 that his train was the Taunton train and wasn't going to Manchester and, what's more, he didn't know what platform the Manchester train was going to depart from.
His quite sensible suggestion that they should "listen to the announcements" was, in fairness, rebutted with the retort "most of the announcements are in Welsh". Which they were.......hardly anyone in Cardiff speaks Welsh so why the pretence?
Hey ho, what would I know?
See, it's not just the punters the rail network screws over. Think of the staff, surely?
Thank you for reading.
Er, not as a commuter on this occasion, thankfully, just on a day freebie with the wife (aka the credit card custodian) courtesy of my employer to Cardiff.
A few hours retail therapy for her and the journey from Filton went without hitch, all good so far.
The fun began at Cardiff.
The 14:31 service to Portsmouth was cancelled but FGW were sorry for any inconvenienced caused.....or that was what the announcement said so that's alright then.
The 14:48 to Swansea was also cancelled but FGW were sorry about that as well even if the apology appeared to be a well-used recording.
Our train, the 15:00 to Taunton (from platform 1), rolled up on platform 2 with no announcement that there'd been a platform change.....luckily, knowing FGW's track record, I had an eye on the yellow led board thing and spotted the crafty switch.
However, I truly did feel sorry for the harrassed guard who had to explain to a large number of aggressive Northerners on platform 2 that his train was the Taunton train and wasn't going to Manchester and, what's more, he didn't know what platform the Manchester train was going to depart from.
His quite sensible suggestion that they should "listen to the announcements" was, in fairness, rebutted with the retort "most of the announcements are in Welsh". Which they were.......hardly anyone in Cardiff speaks Welsh so why the pretence?
Hey ho, what would I know?
See, it's not just the punters the rail network screws over. Think of the staff, surely?
Thank you for reading.
